Environments

Urban Rain is a sound library that delivers 50 city rain sounds recorded in 96 kHz/24 bit, with Soundminer and BWAV embedded metadata. The library contains various types of rain at different intensities, from very light to downpour. Several thunder claps and rumbles are present as well. Locations are as follows: a terrace, a balcony, a backyard, several streets, a rooftop, a garage, inside a car, a loft (from inside), Chelsea FC Stadium and two patios (interior). All files have been recorded at night so human activity is minimum, although you will hear a tiny bit of traffic rumble in the background.

The library also includes 8 Ambisonics files (B-Format, both in FuMa and ambiX, along with a downmix in stereo) and other sounds related to water in the citylife, such as pipes, a drain and a gutter, which are loopable. By using the free SoundField SurroundZone 2 plugin you can convert the B-format files into your preferred format (stereo, 5.0, 5.1, 7.1).

Descriptive markers have been added to several files to highlight interesting events in an otherwise featureless waveform. These markers can be read in programs such as Izotope RX, Reaper, and Soundminer. The markers are also included as .txt files in separate folder.

Urban Rain II brings you 53 urban rain sounds captured at various indoor and outdoor locations. Recorded at night or at quiet times so it’s free of unwanted sounds, this library includes light, medium and heavy rain over different locations and surfaces.

This library, delivered in our brand-new 3D Surround format, is the perfect fit for your 3D urban ambient scenes. From calm downtown areas to busy crossroads and markets, it features both in- and outdoor subway areas, train stations, highways, parks, fountains, urban beaches, and much more. If your next project is set in an urban area, this collection of urban sounds entails everything your needs require. The duration of the files varies from 3 to 11 minutes to give you more flexibility and less repetitions in your sound design. URBAN USA contains both detailed sound scenes as well as quiet basic layers.

THE WHOLE RANGE OF URBAN SOUND DIVERSITY
URBAN USA covers an immense spectrum of different settings of urban city life. From bustling downtown areas such as subway stations, financial districts, as well as marinas and construction sites, or quieter areas including beaches, parks, and suburbs, URBAN USA offers an authentic and detailed picture of American everyday city-life. As usual, delivered in the best possible quality to exceed the requirements of any professional sound design challenge.

DETAILED SOUND SCENES AS WELL AS QUIET BASIC LAYERS
URBAN USA contains a wealth of rich and expressive sound scenes to create spot-on sound design. In addition, you get a variety of different quiet base layers, perfect for creating the sonic foundation of an urban scene.

INCLUDING STEREO VERSION
In addition to the ORTF-3D files, the 3D SURROUND edition also contains all files in 2.0 stereo for your convenience to save time on unnecessary conversions. Instead, you can instantly use these great new sounds for all your projects that don’t require surround sound.

You get empty streets and construction sites, office exteriors and the port of Aarhus. You get plastic that flutters or thrashes, metal fences that clatter and vibrate, pipes and cavities resonating in the gusts. You get ambiances and specifics. I have tried to strike the balance between variety and nuance, to give you sound pros something to build a scene around. In that sense, this really is a construction kit of sorts.

You will hear very little human activity – other than distant traffic. I recorded mostly at night, and in large, undisturbed areas – and on one occasion in the aftermath of a violent storm (the kind that rips the tiles off the roofs). Had a good time standing in the relative safety of my doorway, recording stuff getting blasted down the street! All sounds were captured in Aarhus, Denmark.

You get empty streets and alleys, office exteriors and a marina. You get steel wires that whistle and whip in the wind, pipes and cavities resonating in the gusts. You get ambiances and a few specifics. I have tried to strike the balance between variety and nuance, to give you sound pros something to build a scene around. In that sense, this really is a construction kit of sorts. This collection picks off where Urban Winds left off.

You will hear very little human activity – other than distant traffic. I recorded mostly at night, and in large, undisturbed areas.

In some of the recordings, you will hear wind buffeting – more of the windscreen than the microphones – but there is some. In some cases, I opted to tame the most violent events, but others I left in. In many cases, wind noise reduction simply took away too much of the forcefulness, so I left it as is.

Some specifics appear in both mono and stereo versions, where the stereo version are X/Y derived from the M/S source files and the mono versions are simply the Mid channel. I did this, because most people seem to prefer X/Y files for post-work, rather than M/S – but a down-mix of X/Y to mono would be inferior to using the original Mid-mic signal. All sounds were captured in Aarhus, Denmark.

Various recordings made through several inner-city winters. This collection includes a diverse range of rain recordings, ranging from light to moderate & heavy rain. All recordings were done between 3am and 5am to minimise the intrusion of traffic noise as much as possible.

SSL16 USA CONTRASTS is a great collection of American Ambiences. Recorded in Summer 2015, I traveled to some of the most beautiful cities of the country to explore the American way of Life.

From San Francisco to New York, visiting:

San Francisco, CA

Carmel by The Sea, CA

Monterey, CA

Yosemite National Park, CA

Los Angeles, CA

Las Vegas, NV

New York, NY

Room tones from the quietness of a Las Vengas Hotel vs the Wild Nature of California & Crowd and traffic of the big cities…. This is the real contrast of USA! As always, recorded in full 5.1 Surround format.

Useful Winds contains 17 decoded ms recordings of various types of wind, both interior and exterior. From a mild breeze through an Irish field to a storm gale atop of a Spanish hill, the library delivers a vast array of windy goodness. Recorded with Schoeps mk4/mk8 & SoundDevices MixPre-D.

This is a special assortment of design fragments from Eiravaein Works. Libraries in the Vaeyan series will be produced over time as new assorted concepts are explored and designed. A welcome addition of flavor for any sound designer's archive!

As with Vaeyan I, II, and III, this is a huddling of field recordings and sound designs that do not quite form a library on their own. However, together they make up an audio FX treasure chest gleaming with gold and silver audio loot!

Variety 1 is a selection of our favourite, most popular sound clips. It includes 150 sound effects from babies to burps, crowds to computers, subways to switches.

It is a mix between vehicles, household, office, human sound effects and more in both specific sound effects, and lush stereo ambiences, weighing in just under 2 gigabytes of audio. Includes 18 fields of bonus Soundminer metadata.

VARIETY01 – a grab-bag of useful, premium sound effects for your next project. From stimulating room sweeteners and essential domestic doors, to overhead aircraft and residential atmos elements, this collection has been crafted to bolster the most used areas of your library.

The collection focuses on modern-day domestic sounds and rural/residential environment elements. These recordings have been gathered throughout the UK and are suitable for a whole host of applications, be it film, television or games.

All sounds are royalty free and equipped with comprehensive Soundminer metadata for rapid access.

Air conditioning is almost everywhere – and this collection will give you different sounds of ventilation systems, from from outside and inside units. Smooth hotel room AC, industrial computer room or bathroom, all those kind of rooms need ventilation systems – and here’s what they sound like.

About Ambisonics:

This is an Ambisonics sound effects library - and by using the free SoundField SurroundZone 2 plugin you can convert the B-format files into your preferred format (stereo, 5.0, 5.1, 6.0, 6.1, 7.0 or 7.1 surround). Note: The library also contains ready-made stereo mixdowns for your convenience.

Take an acoustical tour through Vienna, Austria with this sound effects library recorded by Ana Monte. It features recordings from the downtown area, churches, touristic areas and busy restaurants, subway stations and more!

20 read-to-use stereo and surround (5.0) tracks with all the appropriate metadata ready to be used on your next production.

This pack contains some of the sounds associated with vintage air travel. Not a specific decade (some parts will be suitable for a contemporary setting), but think of the film ‘Catch Me If You Can’, 60s 70s 80s. An era when smoking was still allowed on planes, when PAN AM and TWA ruled the skies. I have created these ambiences, voices and sounds to suit that era.
There are two ‘tourist information’ tapes, based on the audio that would have accompanied a slide show for visitors to London and Los Angeles.
There are public address announcements that you might hear in an airport.
There’s stewardess VO as heard in the cabin of a jumbo jet and stewardess greetings as you board. A few pilot announcements, sounds of busy jumbo jets in-flight from a passenger perspective. A ride in a Cessna, with pilot chatter, planes passing overhead and more. For a full list of sounds, view the excel document, and play the preview file for a taster.

Vintage automobiles passing singly and in groups, from the earliest part of the 20th century. Perfect for those traffic backgrounds in your period production. Hundreds of vehicles, none dated later than 1910, passing at various speeds, and in various configurations and at various lengths. Captured in First Order Ambisonic and available n both FuMa and ambiX order and weighting.

Faunethic's Volcanic Geyser sound library is a unique collection of 21 sounds from the bowels of the earth. Steaming, splashing and muddy textures, these sounds has been recorded at San Pedro de Atacama, in northern Chile. The third most important geothermal spot on earth, San Pedro de Atacama is located between 4500 to 5200 meters above sea level offering a wide and beautiful sonic diversity to its visitors.

This collection provides authentic sound recordings, captured with high-quality equipment: DPA, Neumann and 4minX. All Faunethic tracks includes metadata carefully edited with Soundminer. All these sounds are delivered at 24/96Khz .wav files. This collection come in easily downloadable zip file.

MAFX019 Volcano is a collection of unique sounds recorded in Ethiopia’s Afar region at Erta Ale volcano. Erta Ale is one of only a handful of volcanoes with lava lakes in the world, situated in the Danakil Depression, one of the hottest and most inhospitable places in the world. The name means Smoking Mountain in the local Afarigna language and Erta Ale does not disappoint in this regard, as you can see in the video. This place is also known as the Gateway to Hell, an appropriate moniker given the 47C/117F temperatures and lots of dead fauna we encountered.

There were only a few lava pits when the library was recorded but plenty of continuous and violent toxic gas releases. Occasionally the ground would move creating low frequency rumbles and debris falling. I had to use a long boompole in order to suspend my trusty MKH8060 over the edge and I improvised a spaced omni array by taping the MikroUsi mics to a video tripod ballhead. The expedition wasn’t 100% risk-free but it was more than worth it for these beautiful sounds.

A collection of volleyball recordings, with various hit and block sounds of different strengths – each with multiple versions. These original sounds were recorded with a Pro volleyball player using an official game ball.

Recent Reviews

What others are saying:

With A Sound Effect, Asbjoern has created a web site where our international community can browse, learn, and share the vast fruits of our labors. Together we are accelerating the very real potential power of sound design as a recognized art form.

There are many great independent sound effect libraries available these days. The main problem with having so many, is keeping track of them!

A Sound Effect is a great hub, and is one of the first places I visit to look for sounds by category or genre. I started coming here to see if I could find libraries that I knew I had heard, but forgot WHERE I had heard them.

And in the process discovered libraries I never would have found otherwise. Great work! Keep it up!

David Farmer

Sound designer:Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit trilogies

We're always looking for new sounds to mangle, so when A Sound Effect had a holiday sale, I tried them out.

The purchase experience is really smooth and quick, and delivery is almost instant.